5 Reasons Why Trump’s Muslim Ban is Misguided

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES - 2017/01/29: Following the issuance of an Executive Order by US President Donald J. Trump (January 27), and subsequent public backlash and emergency stay issued by Eastern District Federal Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly (January 28); thousands of demonstrators held a rally in Battery Park in lower Manhattan and marched to Foley Square in protest against Trump administration's policies regarding immigration. (Photo by Albin Lohr-Jones/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)Pacific Press

Last Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that indefinitely banned the admission of Syrian refugees and temporarily banned entry into the country by immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. By Saturday, refugees and immigrants were detained in airports across the country, spurring protests and a national outcry against the possibly unconstitutional move. According to the Trump administration, the ban is an attempt to protect national security. According to The Hill, despite obvious backlash, Trump is sticking by his orders, as he thinks the ban will keep out "terrorists."

On Saturday evening, after the ACLU filed a habeas corpus petition, a federal judge in New York issued an emergency stay that temporarily halted the removal of immigrants detained under Trump’s orders. But, according to reporters nationwide, there is still confusion at airports over who to let in, and many are still being detained and deported. And although Reince Priebus, the president’s chief of staff, told NBC's Meet the Press that green card holders were not a part of this ban, he did add, "If you're traveling back and forth you're going to be subjected to further screening."

In the midst of this immigration crisis, here are five reasons why Trump’s order is misguided.

1. There have been no fatal terror attacks on U.S. soil by immigrants in the seven banned countries

According to an analysis of terror attacks put out by the Cato Institute, between 1975 and 2015 there have been exactly zero Americans killed on U.S. soil by immigrants from the seven countries Trump banned. And, according to a Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security report, no Muslim-American families with backgrounds in those countries have killed any Americans either.

"Contrary to alarmist political rhetoric, the appeal of revolutionary violence has remained very limited among Muslim-Americans," Charles Kurzman, author of the Triangle Center report, toldThe Huffington Post.

2. It doesn’t apply to the Muslim-majority countries where Trump has business deals

Another thing to note is that Trump's executive order excludes countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Turkey (countries with citizens who have actually carried out fatal attacks against Americans, according to the Cato analysis). What do those four countries have in common? They’re all locations where Trump has close business ties, Bloomberg points out.

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3. It’s bad for foreign policy

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator Bernie Sanders have both warned that Trump’s ban could be a recruitment tool for terrorists. For instance, last December, al-Qaida affiliate Al-Shabab used footage of Trump’s call for a ban of Muslims in a recruitment film.

Other world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have spoken out about the dangers of banning immigrants from Muslim countries.

Moreover, Iran, one of the banned countries, says they’ll take “reciprocal measures” to Trump’s order. According to CNN, they have already started banning Americans from entering the country.

4. Even politicians within Trump’s own party don’t agree

Trump’s fellow Republicans are speaking out against the immigration ban. High-profile Republicans, like Arizona senator and former presidential hopeful John McCain and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, have criticized the ban.

“Our government has a responsibility to defend our borders, but we must do so in a way that makes us safer and upholds all that is decent and exceptional about our nation,” said McCain and Graham in a joint statement released Sunday.

So far, more than a dozen GOP members of Congress have spoken against Trump’s order, according to Time.

Social media users have also pointed out that Vice President Mike Pence, before officially joining the Trump administration, called a Muslim ban “offensive and unconstitutional” in a 2015 tweet.

According to Vox, 7,000 people in academia have signed an online petition calling Trump’s ban discriminatory, and noting how much it will “hurt American leadership in higher education and research.”

“This executive order will disrupt scientific research in the U.S., plain and simple," UCLA graduate student Brittany Ulrich toldVox. “The scientific community in America thrives because of immigrants who want to be educated and work in American laboratories, and the field has always welcomed them.”

The ban would make international research collaboration more difficult, points out Vox.

“We’ve been living [here] for years,” Maryam Saeedi, an assistant professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon and an Iranian green card holder, toldVox of herself and her husband. “We are a productive part of this community — and now we’re banned. They just consider us to be terrorists.” Notably, Saeedi's statement was made before Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said that those with green cards would not be impacted by the ban.